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PR & SEO Blog from Silicon Alley

Is Wall Street Heading for Main Street?

Friday, August 03, 2007

The Wall Street Journal being acquired by Rupert Murdoch is raising interesting questions about the future of the paper's integrity and its structure. Will all of its articles adopt a sudden a FOX News slant to the right and will its rebirth give life to sports and culture sections?

On the first note, Time reporter Edward Gomez is not convinced that the paper had much integrity to begin with. In an opinion piece published on the San Francisco Chronicle website he proclaims that "it's media outlets like the WSJ that, over the years, have championed exactly the kind of more, more, more, bigger, bigger, bigger, corporate greed and unrestrained consolidation of ownership that Murdoch's latest buy represents." Hmmm… perhaps they are just getting a taste of their own medicine?

Of course there are also the theories that Murdoch, with his very hands-on management style, will steer the paper away from its core financial focus to a more mass appeal. This would pin the Wall Street Journal directly against the New York Times, which is multifaceted with sections devoted to culture, style and theatre.

Other compelling points were brought to light by Ad Age's Nat Ives in his video commentary on the deal, in which he discusses the change in perception the public might have of the media because of the merger.

He says that Murdoch's purchase might "further the realization among Americans that media is a business." Though this fact may seem obvious to PR people and our colleagues in the marketing world, few people outside of this field actually understand the nature of the media. Specifically, that being fair and unbiased is an aspiration, but often not a reality. It's no secret that in small trade publications, advertising drives editorial content. What are the big ones driven by? This answer is certainly more complex, but part of it involves the views of their tycoon owners like Rupert Murdoch.

Labels: media, Web 2.0